How Porn Links and Ben Bernanke Snuck Into Bitcoin’s Code

Photo Credit: CNN MoneyHere’s a little-known quirk of cyber currency Bitcoin: There are coded messages hidden in the ledger that track bitcoin transactions. Most are innocuous, but this week, the discovery of a malicious transmission filled with porn links set the Bitcoin community abuzz.

Bitcoin, a four-year-old digital currency developed by a hacker who still remains anonymous, is a favorite plaything of libertarians and cryptography geeks. It burst into the mainstream this year when investors took note of its wild price swings. One bitcoin is now worth around $112, down from a record high of $266 last month, but up from $5 a year ago.

At the core of the bitcoin network is a database recording every single transaction.

Bitcoin enthusiasts have long known about a technical loophole that allows people to inject coded messages into the database. The trick is typically used for pranks or harmless notes, but Bitcoin discussion boards lit up on Monday with the news that someone took advantage of it for a nastier purpose: adding encoded links that claim to lead to porn sites, some featuring children.

A technical analysis posted on BitcoinTalk.org delves into the details. There doesn’t seem to be much danger for the casual bitcoin user. The porn links are concealed in hexadecimal code, and a decoder is needed to translate them into English. In other words, you’d really have to be looking for it.

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